how divine!

I guess this post started because I wanted to post some stuff that I really found outstanding in my devos.. then i kinda procrastinated on it so it built up into a lot of other add-ons so this might be another long post. but here goes:

"The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."
Romans 8: 6-8
I really liked this verse for some reason.. it's just so TRUE. How life-giving God is and how he gives us peace is beyong amazing. and very bluntly but truthfully so, if we love God, we want to please Him, and we cannot if we are trapped by sin.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? [...] For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8: 35-39
It's just a very comforting verse. It reassures me that no matter what God is reaching out to me and loving me, and i can only hope to be able to love God back in times of trouble, hardship, etc. It helps me see God's omnipotence and how He has sovereign control. :)

Idunno this is just what I really took away recently from my devos ^^

NEXT... bad transitions between topics.. haha but I was recently re-watching a video on youtube and i tend to like to read comments bout vids just to see how other ppl feel or react to it... and the video i was watching is called "That's my King! Do you know Him?" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z15FlTONVo) and ofcourse vids like these always generate a lottt of debate between Christians and non-believers... but it's really sad and disappointing to see what some people have to say about God, Jesus, Christians, and religion in general. I can't even imagine how much people lk that are hurting God and yet He still loves them... so remember to keep the ppl that don't know Christ in our prayers!!! Hope that someday they might also see and find the super-awesome God that we have the great great honour of knowing. ^^

okay next bad transition. i just wanna talk about softball... :D we're not doing quite as well this year as we have been doing in the past but i had a great convo with phil about how soldiers is doing. and we don't really mean our record. we were kinda talking about our team spirit and leadership. i'm not really on leadership... but i forget how we got on that topic.. but yeah it was really great because we talked about where we think we went wrong with losing focus on what the point of softball is. It's really hard to not be competitive at all in sports really... but somewhere along the way winning and losing became too important. well partially about the fact that there's playoffs and we want to get into playoffs but i wish we were a team that does not lose in spirit when we lose in points. idunno if i should say what phil said since he also told me to not say anything cause i'm not on leadership and he's talking to greg about it and all. but basically we talked about setting examples. and i'm really proud of phil. i feel like i've seen him really get to grow in his relationship with God and i'm glad that he's willing to sacrifice and change himself for the benefit of others. MAYBE I GAVE AWAY TOO MUCH THERE >__< but honestly we just had a double header today and we lost both. and then we had a devo that contained topics: God's divine plan (nothing happens through coincidence), blind to the fact that you're blind. it's amazing really how God works. we think we're too proud as a team and we don't know humility. we've placed winning over what really matters. having fellowship and fun as a team and with other teams.. as lame as that might sound. and this is God's way of telling us to be humble, to be one of those "not as good" teams so we might find that winning is not everything. blind to the fact that we were blind. well it took us many losses and this is just God's way of breaking us down. we couldn't see how much we were focusing on winning and wanting to win and we couldn't even see there was this problem. but yknow i'm glad we talked about this. i believe in leadership :D

ANYWAY that was kinda a long post. i still have mroe to say. maybe if i posted when things happen and not wait til later i won't have to write super long posts that ppl get bored of. next timeeee.. imma blog about something to do with kevin lol

contact (pt2)

well what's kinda funny is that i kinda forgot all the awesome things that happened last weekend that i wanted to blog about... but i remember the general gist of it.. good thing i left that list of things in pt1...

what i'm really really enjoying this summer, and to think i would've missed out on SOO much if i went to hk, is SOFTBALL. i absolutely love hanging out with Soldiers. Well let's not just limit it to softball.. but just hanging out with people from church in general since i don't get to do that often during school it seems. The environment is just great, i always feel happy and i love the support. it just becomes most apparent with softball because of games and practices and always eating with the team before/after/during socials. so many jokes and laughter just comes out of it and getting to know new people and get closer with old friends. like i've been playing on the same team with kevin for 2 years and i didn't really know him until this year! and it's been really great getting to know him haha. also getting closer to girls too like maureen, esther, andrea, and aly! it feels very good getting to fellowship and just having the opportunity to play in such a good environment and being able to build better friendships with my team :D

on the downside though.. i feel like i've been neglecting my relationships with my school friends. because i love and enjoy so much more hanging out with church friends/team i've put them before my school friends... also because my weekends are pretty full and my friends tend to plan things for the weekend.... and therefore i cannot go. idunno. i just haven't been good in terms of my friendship with school people. It hasn't ever been amazing and i don't really feel that attached to them.. although i feel like i'm missing out a lot when i don't go to stuff that they plan.. i feel lk i'd be having a better time with my team anyway T_T idunno i feel bad that i'm thinking/seeing it this way. maybe it's just that i kind of need a break from them? i mean i have been wanting to get out of highschool since grade 11... idunno it's tough and i feel rather conflicted about it but idunno what to do. softball kinda takes priority for sure though so. yeah... we'll see how it goes.

ANYWAY TODAY i had a splendid day playing softball haha. it was extremely fun playing sanctified.. i guess because i knew a couple of the people.. but they were just a fun team overall and we even played the extra inning for fun! and lots of food at the end haha I EVEN BASE COACHED but then howard forgot he needed to run and then i wasn't yelling at him enough.... so he threw his gloves at me =( and i batted so much because we had such few people! just a really great day. and kevin drove me home which was nice because there was no one there today that lived close to me =(

contact! (intro)

so it's kind of late so i don't want to write a super long post but here's the prelude to "contact! (main)" one. so basically i called it contact 1) because it's the name of the game we played at jon's bbq 2) because i'm so happy about the contact i've been making with ppl this weekend 3) not as happy with the contact i'm not making with school people 4) and the good talks i've had today =D

basically just some building friendships, talk about friendships, bonding, loving, and nice stuff for the most part =) this weekend of softball was pretty darn good. i'm proud of myself for making it on base! and good stuff for jj and tim being after me to send me home haha i love my teammm but i hope we grow together and not just to play softball but also love that we're playing and united in LOVE. ^^

NATURE vs me? :(

i haven't blogged in awhile but i guess it's just cause i've been too lazy/too tired. for 5 days and 4 nights i went on a grade trip .. with my grade. to some provincial park called the sandbanks. and i realized maybe camping isn't my thing. the bugs and spiders and MOSQUITOS half killed it. i guess the rest of it (in retrospect) wasn't that bad, but washing dishes was terribly tough.. it was a pretty cool experience though. lots of good times with friends. and i was able to SWIM again since i can't swim much in pools cause of chlorine and eczema, but at the lake it was niiice =D i couldn't get enough of it! (at least until it started becoming really cold and my hands went numb... ) the place was also pretty nice i guess. most amazing at night :) the stars were amaaaazing. so clear and they actually TWINKLED. and the tons of shooting stars you can (apparently) see. i only saw about 10 in total but i saw this humongous one that actually looked lk a rock falling out of the sky.. one night we just lay down on this like strip of road and looked up into the sky. pretty scary actually haha and just looked at stars/shooting stars. i also saw a firefly!! that was cool. made a witty joke about the "grave of the fireflies" hehe

I also took a 30ish minute long walk by myself :) at first it was because i was annoyed and just needed to take a long breather and to kinda pull myself together, to ask God for guidance and strength to face the things i don't want to...but it turned into a 25ish minute session with God in which i just wanted to praise and worship Him :) He is just SO amazing, i can't help myself from just wanting to tell Him how great and awesome He truly truly is. It helped that the place we were camping at was beautiful.. especially the beach =)

anyways.. a lot of people were crying on this trip because it was "the end". i felt really bad that i couldn't find the same emotion, that i felt little sadness in the fact that my entire highschool experience of 6 years was ending.. maybe because a lot of my friends are going to the same university... it's strange looking back on all the reasons i DID cry.
1) what someone wrote in my yearbook
2) yy leaving/audriana talks about "how we will still see each other" made me cry <--- i cried the LEAST in this situation T_T I"M SO HEARTLESS
3) bullies >=\ (but this one ended well.. good talk, real feelings, got some stuff cleared up)
but honestly yeah T_T i'm happy for the past 6 years, but i've been ready to move on for awhile. (though it fluctuated...) i know i will keep in touch with the people that matter and it isn't the end... as for those that i don't know as well.. well no offense >__< but how can i have the feelings of missing them. maybe i am just cold hearted T_____T anyway... lol

so now i'm back in toronto. glad to be home =) and pretty bored though. maybe it's cause other ppl are gone on a camping trip again. i can't even watch my animes/dramas when they're gone!! but i'm trying to find things to do. sad that i can't go to summer conference! =( makes this friday extra boring. but it's alright =) i don't want to be those ppl that needs to have stuff planned every single day to be happy ^^

IT"S OVERRRR

my highschool experience is about a week from being over.. :) yay?nay? i guess i'm more happy than sad about it. electives sound like a ton of fun and i'm glad planning allows for lots of room and not so many restrictions. wish i had more of this stuff in highschool. but yeah i have grad prank, last day of school and grad trip left so i think i'll have fun :) then SUMMER :)

exam time

phew just got physics and math over with today. it was... alright i supposed. i assumed a lot of things in physics so i hope i got it right T_T but lots of guessing. math was alright i suppose but for both exams i'm not sure of any of my answers =( but now i can chills and do nothing! until data... but i don't want to work! it's SUMMMMMER and school is essentially over for me =D

not much happening recently. sleeping late again.. gotta work on that. and gotta find new things to cook cause i can't cook anything =( also this song by jesse mccartney called "just so you know" is stuck in my head a lot lol yaaaaar...

united

so this weekend thus far has been pretty amazing. just some side things to blog about before i get onto the main point... HID was pretty fun. nothing special or anything but enjoyable =) a nice break from school and just good outdoors time. played the s6 vs staff softball game this year. so old now haha but i got a run =D i was just lucky that radu had a good hit haha. i also watched UP.. really cuuute movie but a looot of sad parts =( cried so many times haha >_< doh so lame T_T but yeah good stuff. and felly was good, talked to deaconess lorraine =) she's always so supportive and stuff. ^^

anyways i really wanted to blog about my saturday... because it was a very good day :) i had an STM training but had to leave early to go to ontario place for the hillsong concert! good thing i stayed long enough to learn about the other team members going on the trip. it's just really amazing to hear how God works in people's lives and meets all their needs and how each one of us seem specifically picked for this team. and how we're all just there together and wanting to do what we're called to because we love God. anyways it was good times at Ontario Place. too bad there was no maze =( but we went on random log ride which wasn't very wetting. i think i got a bit sunburned on the face. not to a peeling extent though. it was cool cause kevin came with us and we don't really hang out with him a lot but he wanted to go to the concert :) when hillsong began to play and stuff, i had the same feelings come back to me from the first concert. just how amazing and uniting God's love is. similarly to the STM, bringing people together to tell of the good news, there were a ton of people, gathered to worship God and to shout his praises all because we love Him. It's really amazing seeing a pretty much full concert and everyone worshiping. A lot of people asked me if it was better than the first time i went and i had never really thought about it before.. but it really asked me to reflect on that. I realized i've come a long way since the last concert two years ago. i've matured so much as a person (despite the fact that i keep pointing out i haven't changed...) but especially in my walk with God. two years ago was more of a rededication moment for me. but this year was much different. i wasnt as hit by the words of the song in the way that "wow God is so amazing, i'm terrible for having denied Him so much" but more of a "Yes, God IS amazing and i want to shout out how wonderful He is". I think i used to get caught up a lot in just singing the songs but i've been trying very hard to focus more on the words of the songs and mean them when i sing them and that just made worshipping Him even more fulfilling. it was also great seeing the friends that i went with also worshipping. I'm glad that all the people decided to come and could make it. I know some were hesitant or maybe only wanted to go for Hillsong, but i really hope that last night made some difference in their night, whether it was learning how to worship better, or self reflection. I know a lot of people might walk away from events like this and be on a spiritual high or some sort of high from the excitement. But I hope that everyone, including me, could worship like that ALL the time and not just in big concerts and events that give you that "feeling". Just truly mean what they sing and reflecting on it. Anyway that's my little spiel about the concert. I learnt a lot from it ^^ God is awesome :)

after that we just went to eat korean and stuff. got a ride home at like 3? (sorry oscar T_T but thanks ^^) and basically fell into bed... good day =)